Elisabeth Wiklander

Elisabeth Wiklander with cello

Swedish cellist Elisabeth Wiklander completed her Bachelor of Music at the University of Gothenburg and her Master of Music with honours at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in 2008. She worked in Amsterdam with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra before accepting her position with the London Philharmonic Orchestra in 2013. She engages in orchestral education and has taught students at conservatoires in both Amsterdam and London.

In 2016 Elisabeth was appointed a Cultural Ambassador of the National Autistic Society in the UK. She is on the autism spectrum, diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome, and has helped people touched by autism since 2006, becoming a public autism advocate in 2015. She has given a TEDx talk on autism broadcast live on the internet and is in high demand for her autism support and as a public speaker.

Rook + Cello

LISTEN to the piece | VIEW the evocative transcription video | Download the SCORE

I cannot visit a rookery without hearing the sound of a cello. The rook has an iridescent purple plumage whose darkness is gothic. The sound of a minor sixth on the cello is also purple, to my ears, as is the note E and the Phyrgian mode.

An influence on this piece is Erik Satie's Rose+Croix music. The title Rook+Cello echoes its titular formulation and the musical form resembles Satie's durational constructions. Was Satie autistic? Retrospective diagnosis of historical figures is a risky business, but there are indications that he had many autistic traits. He lived in a kind of self-imposed lockdown in his tiny apartment in Arcueil, to which nobody was ever admitted.

This piece may be performed with or without the rook samples.

Rook samples are used under licence from the BBC Sound Effects Library: Rookery, recorded by John Burton, 21st April 1981.